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2012 Olympics: Full schedule and CTV lineup

It may have taken awhile, but the Bell/Rogers Alliance have finally released today their full daily line-up for the 2012 London Olympics, due to begin in two weeks from today.

Viewers can head to CTVOlympics.ca/guide and RDSolympiques.ca/leguide for a fully interactive guide of every event being screened across the two websites and nine networks during the 5,500 hours of coverage over the two weeks. All medal events are highlighted, as will be live events, with direct access to the live online stream.

CTV will feature 22 hours of coverage per day, with a breakdown that looks like this:

Toronto (July 11, 2012) – Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium announced today its broadcast schedule for the London 2012 Olympic Games with the release of the Bell Viewers’ Guide at CTVOlympics.ca/guide andRDSolympiques.ca/leguide. This interactive schedule is the most-up-to-date programming guide available for Canadians during the Games. This allows viewers to watch what they want, when they want, and how they want. Regular updates will be made to ensure viewers do not miss their favourite event or athlete throughout the Consortium’s more than 5,500 hours of television and online coverage.

A comprehensive viewing guide is more important than ever before as London 2012 features 26 sports, 302 medal events, and more than 10,500 athletes. TheBell Viewers’ Guide is a Canadian’s best friend when it comes to sorting through the multitude of Olympic Games viewing options. Users can set their time zone and can access the schedule on the go, as optimized versions of the Guide are available for smartphones and tablets. The Guide includes the schedules for the Consortium TV networks and its two websites – CTV, CTVOlympics.ca, RDS,RDSolympiques.ca, TSN, Sportsnet, V, OMNI.1, OMNI.2, OLN, and ATN.

When the Consortium’s coverage begins, viewers will prominently see the Live Now module on its websites. This provides a snapshot of current Olympic competition and direct access to events streaming on CTVOlympics.ca or RDS,RDSolympiques.ca. Live Now will also be easy to find as it is a fixture on the main pages of the websites.

“Regardless of the screen Canadians choose, the Bell Viewers’ Guide is an essential part of the London 2012 experience,” said Mark Silver, Head of Digital Media, Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium. “With round the clock coverage across our TV networks and digital platforms, we are providing our audience with an intuitive viewing companion for each day of the Games.”

• Navigation – viewers can find all of the programming schedules for the Consortium’s channels and websites, sorted by time zone

• Live Event Snapshot – fans can use their mouse to click on an event listing for direct access to video

• Medal Events Highlighted – viewers can easily find Olympic Games medal events as each will be marked with a ‘medal’ icon; events in which Canadians are expected to do well will be marked with a ‘Maple Leaf’ and a ‘medal’ icon

• Up-To-Date Programming Schedules – in order to reflect the most accurate programming schedules, the Bell Viewers’ Guide will update automatically if live event times change

In addition to the classic web version of the Bell Viewers’ Guide, it is also available on smartphones and tablets. For the comprehensive tablet, mobile, or live video experience, visit CTVOlympics.ca and RDSolympiques.ca and download the CTV Olympics London 2012 App in mid-July.

CTV’s Olympic coverage is truly woeful.
Unless you are following a particular Canadian Athlete, or a blue riband event like the sprinting do not get your hopes up of seeing any action. If you do see any you can forget about following it thorough to see who wins gold silver and bronze, unless there is a Canadian Athlete involved.
Coverage is typified by the following:-
– Canadian Cyclist is eliminated, cuts to commercial break- coverage ceases completely with no explanation. This happens time and again. Any enthusiasts for a particular sport will be sorely disappointed.
– Highlights programs where you should at least be able to catch up on other events consist of a maximum of 50% Olympic action, with the rest made up of repeated fillers.
– Coverage does not match the advertised schedule.

It is quite clear that CTV are providing a very minimal service. Having spent millions for the broadcast rights, it seems they have only done so to try and prove their sports worthiness to the hockey franchises.

I haven’t noticed a problem with CTV cutting away from coverage when a Canadian is eliminated.

I usually switch between CTV, TSN, Sportsnet (and even NBC) during primetime. Usually can avoid a good number of the features, see all the sports I want to and avoid ads. Otherwise, yeah, the highlights programs are kind of lifeless.

Is it just me, or have they not posted the online portion of the guide that is promised in the press release? Didn’t a past release talk about 15 streams or something like that, which would seem to be different from just streaming the TV broadcast? Or will you just be able to click on anything in the main schedule on demand and pull up a stream of it (which would be more than 15 concurrent streams though)?

Either way, if CTV drops the ball for online streaming, I’m going with a British proxy and using the BBC online feed, where everything is guaranteed to be.

I favor network-by-network. I’m thinking the men’s opening soccer along with that from the women are all online. Apparently, instead going to RDS INFO, the secondary French Olympic TV programming is on RDS2.

I’m taking with OMNI, it will be more highlights of the Olympic day during primetime in the various languages (though I haven’t fully looked into schedule yet).

I would prefer a sport by sport breakdown. I understand that the schedule you have posted is ET mixed with local times for news and rebroadcasts. Now for PT, the live programming is from 1 AM to 3 PM. What will be on from 3 to 6 PM? Will it be Olympic Overnight? After the local news, there will only be an hour before Olympic morning starts.

Might see at least some highlight packs in primetime on TSN or Sportsnet (or even OLN). I know TSN showed a lot of soccer in primetime in 2008. Of course that was a completely different situation though.

It’s interesting, that Sportsnet, will be acting like they did in 2010, where they would be a secondary channel, like TSN. Originally when the Consortium won the bid, to broadcast both the 2010 and 2012 Games, they originally had Sportsnet, in a different role in 2012.
– Rogers Sportsnet: (RSN): For the Vancouver Games, RSN will work in concert with TSN to provide “wall-to-wall” events coverage. In 2012, with the larger summer competition schedule, RSN’s multiple national feeds will be deployed in an innovative manner, maximizing exposure for the many high-profile sports and to expand the overall sports offering for viewers.

Maybe they decided it was just easier to have all four regional channels showing the same thing? After all, TSN can only show at 7ET across the country, so maybe they wanted to keep them both on a similar schedule?

Not to play devil’s advocate here … I know the NBC issues with showing major sports (swimming, gymnastics, athletics) tape-delayed on prime time, cut and full of human touch stories; however, they seem to provide better live coverage for what they see as second level sports:

– Bravo shows the entire tennis tournament
– CNBC shows wall-to-wall boxing
– MSNBC and NBCSportsNetwork show a lot of live sports during the day – yes, including shooting, archery, handball, and fencing
– two dedicated channels for soccer and bastketball

As for the soccer and basketball channels sure its a good idea but part of the issue is not everyone will have access to them but the other thing is all games are not live which is odd you would think with 2 channels like that all games would be live but if you look at day one for womens soccer only 2 games are live day one for mens soccer 4 games are live so if i was American i would be upset over that.

Looking at the schedule link at ctvolympics for Jul 25\26, I think this is because the games overlap in the same timeframe, and only 2 women games, and 4 men soccer games can be shown live on one channel.

Beach volleyball is more attractive to viewers than soccer?
Tennis has the big names people want to watch?
Better football games going on at the same time?
Show Canadian events, naturally, over events with non-Canadians.